50
Breyer, J., dissenting
Monroe. To the contrary, the Government's argument, which concerns all applications of the "majority" language in the 1968 code's second sentence, is that:
"[P]reclearance of the majority vote provision incorporated in the State of Georgia's 1968 Municipal Election Code did not also preclear the prior or subsequent adoption and implementation of a majority vote requirement by any particular municipality within the State." Motion to Affirm 11.
That argument rather clearly says that the Attorney General, in effect, precleared the Georgia statute on its face, not as applied to each of Georgia's several hundred municipalities. That is the very argument that the Government made, and the Court accepted, in City of Rome.
Justice Scalia does not take the majority's view of the Government's argument. Rather, he says that, in any event, the Attorney General's initial preclearance of the second sentence simultaneously precleared that sentence's application because the State's submission was detailed enough to impose upon the Attorney General the "burden" of seeking detailed city-by-city information. Ante, at 40. In my view, however, precedent compels a contrary conclusion. In respect to the relevant point—whether the Attorney General cleared the statute on its face or also as applied—one cannot distinguish the issue before us from the (in this respect) identical issue in City of Rome. And that conclusion is consistent with well-established legal principle. See Clark v. Roemer, 500 U. S. 646, 656 (1991) ("[A]ny ambiguity in the scope of a preclearance request must be resolved against the submitting authority"); McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U. S. 236, 257 (1984) (same); 28 CFR §§ 51.26(d), 51.27(c) (1997) (requiring preclearance submissions to explain changes clearly and in detail).
In a nutshell, City of Rome turns on the practical fact that the Attorney General, in preclearing the 1968 Georgia
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